As legislators and the executive branch renew their efforts to
repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act this week, they might
want to keep in mind a little-known financial consequence of the
ACA: Since its adoption, far fewer Americans have taken the
extreme step of filing for personal bankruptcy.

Filings have dropped about 50 percent, from 1,536,799 in 2010 to
770,846 in 2016. Those years also represent the time frame when
the ACA took effect. Although courts never ask people to declare
why they’re filing, many bankruptcy and legal experts agree that
medical bills had been a leading cause of personal bankruptcy
before public healthcare coverage expanded under the ACA. Unlike
other causes of debt, medical bills are often unexpected,
involuntary, and large. […]

“It’s absolutely remarkable,” says Jim Molleur, a Maine-based
bankruptcy attorney with 20 years of experience. “We’re not
getting people with big medical bills, chronically sick people who
would hit those lifetime caps or be denied because of pre-existing
conditions. They seemed to disappear almost overnight once ACA
kicked in.”